Category: Memories

In the summer of ’79, I came to live with my grandparents. The Greens owned 1/3rd of an acre in the small Limestone Township in Illinois. They had bought a tiny house with three rooms in the mid-1940’s. Over the years, my grandfather, the oldest of 12 children from a rural Kentucky family, added a large kitchen, am indoor bathroom and a back bedroom. The houses in the neighborhood were mostly larger with two stories and nearly all of them had large families. My mother was one of the few little girls on the block and held her own with the gang of boys who ran and played and shot arrows and bb guns.

My mom with the neighborhood kids, second from left.

Every house also had a backyard vegetable garden. While the neighbors to the immediate right had corn and beans, my grandparents had a brilliant, strong nightshade patch. Bell peppers, okra, eggplant and some of the largest and sweetest beefsteak tomatoes on the Earth. That summer we also added cucumbers. My grandfather could grow anything he put in the ground.

He worked at it, he watered and weeded and whistled parts of songs.

Grandpa Alvie Green with my uncle and my mom.

And in late June, we would walk back to the further edge of the yard, across the swath of thick, Kentucky bluegrass. We’d pick one of the 3 to 4 pound scarlet gem tomatoes, rinse it with the garden hose and bite right in. There was a magic in the ritual of it, to the true reward of working with nature, There was a bliss and comfort to it. A heaven that did not come from some store. It came from the dirt where you grew up. It came from the plot of land chosen by a WWII veteran who decided to migrate from his home in Kentucky and make a life for his wife and children. That tomato was a manifestation of love and home and family.

We’d make glorious sandwiches of Wonder Bread, Miracle Whip and thick tomato slices. We’d make pepper relish. My grandmother would marinate the cucumbers with onions in vinegar, salt and sugar. When I was sunburnt or started to break out, she would pulverize a cucumber and put the juice on my skin. We would trade our extras with neighbors. There was an unspoken connection and wealth in the ability to share.

That summer, my grandmother asked my grandfather for a meat grinder. And he bought it for her. It was huge. It was supermarket-deli huge. It had a lot of sharp, shiny parts which I was told not to touch. It was loud. I immediately hated it. She bought it for one thing: Imperial ham.

Not to grind beef or make sausage. We raised no animals except the baby squirrels that my grandfather trained to come and take walnuts from his shirt pockets. They were friends, not food. Imperial ham. What is Imperial ham? Well…

It’s baloney. And mayonnaise. And onion. And sweet pickles. And it’s somehow suddenly a royal delicacy. Apparently, if you put baloney through a meat grinder and add these things in the proper amounts, a certain kind of alchemy occurs in which it is now both Imperial and Ham. There is nothing like it. It smells weird and it tastes like summer and it’s amazing on white bread. And especially magical topped with a tomato slice. And a side of marinated cucumbers. We would put it all on white paper plates, sit outside in the big swing together, watching neighbors and squirrels.

I remember it clear and precious, because we have had nothing like it for so long. Everyone I shared that with has died. My grandfather in 1997, grandmother in 2001 and my mother in 2010. I am heartened because I am seeing a renewal in the importance of local family gardening. Small farms that have grown to bring their organic bounty to market. People who can grow anything and what they produce is beautiful and healthy, fresh and practical food to share, tokens and totems of home and family and love.

My mother and my son are both Geminis. Her birthday was June 13th and his is June 20th. They were, for a time, my twins. I watched my mother become the best grandmother and friend a boy could have. Like me, Connor has Asperger’s Syndrome. He does not open up to many people and he is very quiet. Mom was only 4’10” and she would get right down on the floor with him. Their connection was deep and true and full of laughter.

I moved back home in 2008 when my mom’s breast cancer had returned. She had had a radical mastectomy in 2006, followed by chemo. Although she had somewhat accepted all the accoutrements of the disease, she never really embraced them. She had wigs, hats, shirts with allowances for drains, post-mastectomy bras, and even weighted falsies. She had all the necessary crap that they dole out to women who lose a breast in an attempt to make them acceptably normal to society. It wasn’t her and it wasn’t comfortable. And it all ended up stuffed in her sock drawer while she sat bald, braless and comfortable binge=watching The Sopranos.

One day though, one special day of birthday magic smack in the middle of June, a miracle happened. We always celebrated their birthdays together. I had brought Connor over for his 8th birthday, Boston cream pie, candles, flowers, little gifts for both.

The oven was on, and the air conditioner was going full blast. Although she was sweating, her tiny feet were like blue ice. She asked Connor to go grab a pair of socks for her. He headed into her bedroom.

“HEY!” he exclaimed. “HEY!”

“What is it, Sugar Booger?”

“Granny! I found a belly!”

“WHAT?!”

“I found a belly!” Connor darted out of her room and ran into the kitchen with his shirt hiked up and a heavy flesh-colored false boob slapped on his stomach. He pushed his stomach out proudly.

My mom and I burst out laughing. Neither one of us ever would have thought of it. Connor wore the magic “belly” the rest of the evening. He fell asleep on her couch full of lasagna and cake, clutching a stuffed Pikachu with one hand and the “belly” with the other.

It was magic indeed. This was love, laughter and true imagination holding fast against loss, pain and the precious knowledge that life is finite.

When the cancer came back, it came back everywhere. My son was 10. He was so open and caring and happy with her. He would stay with her while I ran out to get her groceries.

When she was hospitalized, I would watch them walk down the corridor together. Both blonde, the same height, sharing knock-knock jokes. Because between them nothing was about cancer or autism. It was about love. No labels, no expectations, no prognosis. Just love in its most honest, accepting expression. And I was in the middle, watching in awe, as both their halos shone bright.

My mom passed in late July 2010. My son turns 19 on Tuesday.

He has grown into a wonderful, smart, and loving human being. He’s a responsible young man who has a good job, attends school and takes good care of himself. He is a brilliant artist in the middle of producing his own comic book. He is a grown version of that child who sees people without limits and finds laughter in unexpected places.

I am still in the middle of a great love. And so incredibly grateful to be his mom.

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